Young writers practice empathy when they begin new projects by considering questions like these:

Which stories need to be told right now? Who needs to hear them? How will you reach them?Which arguments need to be made right now? Who needs to be called to action? How will you invite them?What do people need to learn more about right now? How will build and share your expertise?I’ve found that when the process is rooted in empathy, writers are far more likely to produce and share meaningful work with real audiences.

Writing Sparks was created by the award winning developers of nightzookeeper.com. Watch this short video to find out how Night Zookeeper can automatically assess your student’s writing and raise attainment in your classroom.

If you’re looking to get your name out there or widen your network, guest posting is a wonderful option. To give you a jump start, we’ve compiled one of the most comprehensive, high-quality lists available on the web. These 50 blogs all accept guest posts and pay $50 for posts.

Some of these sites will pay more than $50, while others pay up to $50. Some sites want longer articles, but to us, a guest post is a non-contractual appearance on a site.

Screencasting is the capture all of the action on a computer screen while you are narrating. Screencasts can be made with many tools and are often used to create a tutorial or showcase student content mastery. This page provides links to information, ideas, rubrics, and tools for the creation of screencasts by both teachers and students.

Jim Lerman's insight:

Schrock is one of the net's great education thought leaders. This is her all-purpose guide to screencasting. Great source of knowledge and ideas.

Sansar empowers individuals, communities, schools, studios, corporations, brands and others to easily create, share and ultimately sell immersive 3D social experiences for consumers to enjoy on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows PCs, according to the company Linden Labs, which also created Second Life.

Stoics and psychologists agree. Most of your negative feelings are caused by irrational or inaccurate thoughts. You do not need positive thinking to feel good. You just need a more accurate one.I compiled a list of the most common inaccurate thoughts. This list was inspired by the work of psychologist Albert Ellis.

Exciting collection of books. Look into the openculture.com site too! It has ads but is an amazing collection. From About statement: "Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between."

"Belt Publishing is a small publishing company based in Cleveland, Ohio that is dedicated to telling stories about the American Rust Belt, a term used to describe a number of cities in northeastern and midwestern states that have been impacted by industrialization and deindustrialization. Belt Magazine, the company's online magazine, features essays, investigative journalism, creative nonfiction, and more about Rust Belt cities. As of this write-up, recently published articles include an investigation of the impact of oil pipelines on the Great Lakes, an article about recent revitalization efforts and changes in Gary, Indiana, and a personal essay by Detroit-raised writer Amy Kenyon about letters that she penned as a child to Jackie Kennedy and Ray Bradbury. Visitors may also browse archived articles by category under the Belt Magazine tab."

"When I compose a first draft I just let everything I feel and think spill out raw and chaotically on the page. I let it be a mess. I trust my instincts. I just let my ideas and feelings flow until I run out of words. It’s fine for an early draft to be a disaster area. I don’t censor myself. When I have this raw copy, I can then decide if this idea is worth pung more effort into. If so, then with the second draft, I clean up spelling and grammar. I add anything I forgot to include in the first draft and take out whatever isn’t working. Then the real fun begins with the third draft. (Despite its importance, art should always be a form of play.) That’s where I work on what I know are my creative weaknesses."

I love this piece. It absolutely sings and goes straight to the heart of a writer. If you are a creative, you should feel inspired and thankful for the opportunity to create beautiful art with your words.

***This review was written by Penelope Silvers for her curated content on "Writing Rightly"***

Storyboard That has been the PERFECT creating tool to support the type of writing my kindergartners are currently focusing on. Basically, the web tool allows kids to click and drag scenes, characters, props, and more onto a storyboard. The kids can customize their characters to resemble themselves or however they’d like! Storyboard That can be used to create graphic organizers, recreate a scene in history, demonstrate a science experiment, put a visual to vocabulary, whatever you can come up with! Recently, my kids have been working on sequence writing and including transition words at the beginning of sentences. One day we discussed some essential steps in the “getting ready for school” process and their assignment was to create a storyboard of how they get ready for school. After they finished, they put their storyboards into a collaborative slides. Here they are!

I think a good way to differentiate the lesson would be to have similar articles and questions tailored to the Lexile level of the students---or, even just giving each student a different set of articles with similar questions. The process and product would be somewhat differentiated, but still ultimately reach the same goals.

Even pairing students who are struggling with students who are exceeding would be a good way to differentiate, in my opinion. You can have the student who is struggling receive help from the student who is exceeding---which will allow for the student who exceeding to face the challenge of trying to "teach" a concept to the struggling student, while the struggling student receives the benefit of having misconceptions/misunderstandings cleared up by a peer who may be able to better explain something to them.

Can't think of the right word? Here you'll find subjects divided by parts of speech so that you can simply browse words to describe products, colors, sex, birthday greetings, card messages, and so much more.

"Teachers of most any grade level or subject area could use the interviews on StoryCorps as a community-building activity at the start of the year. For example, play one of the interviews on a common theme like friendship, romance, or family, and then use it as a discussion or writing prompt.

"To focus more on listening, teachers could lead students through a discussion that evaluates the questions asked, their timing, and the responses and then ask them to create their own interviews. For social studies, teachers can use the historical-event interviews as curriculum supplements as well as models for how to interview elders about key events from in their lives.

"It's a great resource to help demonstrate the value of listening and the importance of storytelling and interviewing skills."

"...a public beta of Book Creator for Chrome was officially launched this summer at the ISTE 2017 conference in San Antonio, Texas. Book Creator already has apps for iOS, Android and Windows devices, but this new update means your students can have full access to Red Jumper’s creative storytelling platform on the web with a Mac, PC or Chromebook. Sounds interesting, right? Well, here’s what you need to know."

"Launched in April 2017, the Whole Story is a citizen historian project dedicated to making the accomplishments and contributions of women a visible part of public history. As the team behind the Whole Story points out, statues around the world honor "a staggering amount of men, but very few women." This free mobile application (available for both Android and iOS devices), invites "artists, coders, historians, and everybody else" to create virtual statues that celebrate influential women throughout history wherever a statue of a famous man currently exists. These virtual statues of historical women are then placed on an interactive map. When visitors are physically at the same location as one of these virtual statues, they will be able to view the new statue via augmented reality on their phone or personal device. For example, visitors at Mount Rushmore will be able to view a statue honoring Sacagawea, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, and Florence Nightingale via the Whole Story app."

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.